h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

the autist formerly known as flinch 824: "So how do you complain?" As Subcom said, you simply have to respond to your moderation email... which you've done and we've replied to - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F76594?thread=146309&post=1420002#p1420002 (Posting 33). Linus 835: "I think the moderator in question is actually a computer program but i digress..." All our Moderators are human, Linus - they do all the moderations by hand... unlike some other areas of the BBC, where they do use automatic swear filters. Lentilla 833: "I suppose the only thing that drives me crazy about moderation is that I can't quote anybody" You can, as long as it's fair use and doesn't break copyright law, but as you point out, the inability to include URLs in Postings makes it a bit more difficult. We're still working on trying to remove that rule... but in all honesty, with the Afghan war it's unlikely to happen very soon. :-(

Thats interesting, because i changed my homepage once and it was moderated. When i complained i was told it was a glitch in an automated program...

Flitch, yes there has hardly been a whisper about the global arms trade. Surely it can't be because a large percentage of it eminates from the US and that they are big contributors to the Republican party(and probably the Democrats as well for all i know)...

Naah, must be some other reason

All I can say is that the opportunities and availability vary within the U.S. For example I live in the Deep South. Here we have Grambling and Southern-two predominately black colleges. Aside from scholarships there are loans and grants to pay tuition. Insurance and medical bills are high for everyone. Some of these variances are not so much the federal government's responsibility as it is the local (parish/county or state) government's.

However, we do have a higher rate of spendable income than some of the other states. The difference between wages and cost of living(average rent and utilities, groceries etc.)is higher here than say Boston where the rents and bills are higher because of supply and demand. Where my brother lives the lower paid jobs make at least a third more than I do. A one bedroom apartment costs as much as a house to rent per month here. It would be hard for me to move North directly. I would probably move West first where higher pay and not much more expenses would make saving money to move would be easier.

I am sure that there are many regional differences across the U.S. I hope this helps explain some of your questions. Maybe someone will fill in a few more blanks.

I try to take people at face value and treat everyone as a person first. I have been treated unfairly by some who can not see past complexion, religion or gender. The most important thing in my opinion is respect. The second is understanding. I feel better if I can understand someone's opinion even if I don't agree with it. Tolerance is something that I feel is often overlooked.

No, Lentilla - in my view, the anthrax thing is separate - it's too bitty and piecey for the original perpetrators, I think they'd go for something loud, scary and spectacular. We've had upwards of 20 anthrax scares in NZ - so far as I am aware, all of them hoaxes. That's 100% of them. It's different in the US of course...
In our local paper yesterday, a guy was advocating mass smallpox vaccination - which seems a whole lot 'better' choice for germ warfare - it's person to person contagious, as anthrax isn't.

Marvellous! I shall use that if you haven't a copyright on it. An ex of mine used to say "Up your giggie with a blowtorch" which he claimed he got from graffiti somewhere. I heard a good one on a sitcom the other day: "Go boil yourself. Then talk to me!"

I don't know about h2g2, but on the BBC message boards, you can't say William Sh@ner's name, not even on the Star Trek one!

Howdy, editor dudes!

Maybe I need to reply to my moderation e-mail and ask, because the last time I was moderated, I had quoted a short paragraph from Silver Screens, by Robert Sklar. I gave credit to the author, but the posting containing the quote was removed anyway. Is there any criteria to let me know when I can quote (with credit where credit is due) or should I save myself the trouble? (heck, I should probably zip over to the terms and conditions and see for myself... I'm so lazy!)

Della:

"No, Lentilla - in my view, the anthrax thing is separate - it's too bitty and piecey for the original perpetrators, I think they'd go for something loud, scary and spectacular..."

At first, I thought so too. But I've been hearing bits and pieces of news recently that indicate the terrorists might have planned to use crop dusters to spread the anthrax. We'd be in a lot more deep s**t if they hadn't grounded all the small commercial planes immediately. It sounds as if mailing the dust might have just been a backup plan. Another scary thought I just had was that if they were planning to dust with the anthrax, there's probably a lot more of it hidden away somewhere.

But I'm not sure yet either way - there's a LOT of panicking going on, and I don't want to contribute to it.

"In our local paper yesterday, a guy was advocating mass smallpox vaccination - which seems a whole lot 'better' choice for germ warfare - it's person to person contagious, as anthrax isn't."

Mass smallpox vaccination was actually advised against on the news last night, because one in 18,000 can catch smallpox from the vaccination. Not bad odds, but I'd rather not risk it - considering that the vaccination's effective if administered within 5 to 7 days of exposure. I'm less worried about smallpox because as I understand it, to spread the disease you have to have a live carrier - the equivalent of a Typhoid Mary. Anybody with smallpox will have to be smuggled into the country, and unlike typhoid, it's difficult to disguise the fact that you have smallpox. (As far as I know!)

Autist - Last I heard, the only samples of smallpox were at the CDC and the Russian labs, and in 1999 BBC news was saying that some of the Russian samples have been acquired by terrorists. This doesn't mean that the U.S. hasn't been selling too, of course, but the terrorists would be more likely to approach a Russian lab tech that hasn't been paid in eight months. (As I understand it, when Russia broke up, the state-funded labs were basically forgotten about - all those computers and expensive research equipment was just abandoned, and the employees were left to fend for themselves.)

I don't know why Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather were targeted. They're pretty prominent newscasters, but I don't know how well known they are outside the U.S.

I doubt all small commercial planes are still grounded,and if so the ban will end eventually so why not wait for the ban to lift rather than send a few letters. Given how well organised the plane hijackings were i'm struggling to believe this could be the work of the same organisers.

As for panic, a women on a qantas plane the other day reported an unknown white powder on her apple danish

In case you aren't aware, there has been some discussion of this in the 'Biological Warfare Next?' forum, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F76594?thread=141110&latest=1 As a terrorist tactic, originating from the same twisted minds as the 9/11 tragedy, it seems to make little sense. But then nothing the terrorists do makes ultimate sense, in the first place. In my opinion this stuff is from some other source, but there is really no hard evidence that I have heard yet... As a psychological tactic, it does make some kind of sense, perhaps intended to make it more difficult for the coalition to call for a cease-fire during Ramadan (sp?), the Muslim holy month. The intention would be to further inflame the other Muslim countries, by providing them with another example of how the 'godless American satanic etc etc oppressors', ride roughshod over the 'poor innocent holy Arab nations etc etc' We'll just have to hang tough, I suppose, and hope the culprits are apprehended before they do too much more damage... And keep hoping that enough people will come to their senses..

>the same twisted minds<

You got to remember what a glorious success the 9/11 attacks were. They were designed to prompt, with the minimum effort:

massive global disruption and fear.
military upheaval and political destablisation in the Middle East / Southern Asia.
massive publicity.
To be untraceable to any individual group, therefore create a climate of suspicion, and an unknown ememy (therefore more fear).

Well, they've succeeded on all counts there.

This second threat, of Anthrax, is not rigorously planned, and seems to have slightly different aims. The notes that accompany it however seem to:

deliberately associate itself will 9/11
point the finger at a broad muslim concensus to terrorism over the Israel issue.

These sound to me like the aims of a rightist organisation trying to prompt greater retribution for their own aims.

And let's not forget that the original attack may well have been aimed at prompting a rethink over some western strategy in the East. A massively successful aim, in fact - I do wish it didn't take a couple of plane mombs to get politicians to concede the need for a viable palestinian state...

Linus: We don't use tools to remove words automatically, though we obviously have moderation tools. If you were told that we had automated moderation, you were fed misinformation and we'd dearly love to see the email to make sure that sort of thing isn't said. But if it referred to a problem with our moderation tools, that's different. Don't suppose you have a copy of the emai, do you? (We've checked, and can't find any emails to you that mention this).

Lentilla: Intellectual Property is a legal minefield, but there is a whole page on it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/Writing-Copyright (you need to check out the 'Fair Dealing' part). Hope it helps, but if you do have a specific problem, please reply to the moderation email, or your query may get lost in the volume of h2g2 traffic.

One of the goals of a terrorist is to sow terror in their enemies. One could argue that one of the differences between gov'ts and terrorists is the willingness to attack predominately civilian targets. But working under the context of the desire to sow terror in their enemies to provoke them into a specific action, this follows perfectly. The targets need not always be specific like they were on sept 11.

In my opinion I believe that this is the work of terrorists. I don't know that I would pin it in Osama's lot just yet, I don't have the evidence. It seems a little bit out of his profile in my opinion. He is the one behind bombings. He bombed the embassy, he hit the Cole, and now the WTC. People tend to stick with what they know. Osama knows bombs. This thing stinks of someone else.

But as is the case with terrorists, there is no point really in disrupting your enemies population without letting them know who did it to them. Unless it were a blackmail of sorts. So I think that eventually if I'm right, someone will come out and claim it for their very own work.

All in my own opinion of course

Well obviously it's the work of terrorists - it's a terrorist action. I too doubt that it's the work of a government, state sponsored terrorists would have used better weapons than this to be frank. \For the same reason i don't think it's a major terrorist network behind this. I feel its a smaller paramilitary group, or just a single cell outfit. Whether they're American or not i can't really guess, but their aim seems to be to discredit both Islam, and America's links with Irael. Who would wish to do that?

Hey, I had an idea - I do not and have not believed that the anthrax thingie was done by the same perpetrators of the 9/11 events. Does anyone think that there is a *possibility* that the anthrax letters are down to the right wing militia types we hear about, such as McVeigh's lot? A kind of Reichstag fire thing..
Re Truth as a casualty of war. Jimmy and I sit watching the TV news and wonder what (if anything) we can uncritically accept. I heard just now, a military guy name of Shufflebottom, Shufflebeem or similar, on the radio, saying that he had "information" that the Taleban, the all-purpose Satan/enemy (cf Saddam Hussein in 1991), planned to "poison food aid, and blame it on the Americans" Does he have information? Was out-of-date unsafe food sent, and all this is a cover for that fact? Why send 'food aid'along with bombs anyway? It doesn't make any sense as propaganda.. it's stupid enough for Dubya, the CIA, with their rat cunning usually don't make such ridiculous errors of judgement. If there ever was a reason to *hate* American foreign policy, it's this ghastly war.

I think that the real Anthrax in the US is the responsibility of a group who are using the 9/11 in a sick way, as a kind of 'rubble shield'. I think that the scares in the UK that, up until now anyway, have been fake, are the acts of sick, narrow-minded fools. But that's just *my* opinion. And there are bound to be some accidents with powder - it's just now that everyone's scared of white powder. Fair enough, but a lot of chemical salts are white powders - many harmless. How are we suppposed to differentiate between them, though?

Whoami?

Mysterious Masked Editor Person :

Thanks for looking that up for me - it appears that my quote fell under the category of 'insubstantial extracts,' and if I had bothered to respond to the moderation e-mail, I could have probably managed to get the post back up. But I figured it'd be easier just to reword the quote and repost, so I did - but I'll remember that next time.

Della - I've read the article and it's this guy named Stufflebeam - talk about an unfortunate moniker! It doesn't sound like he has any information to base this on - it's just a guess. The Taliban are picking up as many food drops as possible, and raiding Red Cross warehouses to supplement their own supplies... kind of ironic, because we're trying to help those the Taliban are oppressing. (Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!)

I've thought about the anthrax being spread around by somebody like McVeigh or the Unabomber - somebody with a grudge - but then you have to ask where they got it, because it's laboratory grade. I believe that the anthrax is from Russia. This doesn't mean that it came from the Taliban, of course.

No, you can probably buy it over the web for all i know, which doesn't help narrow it down.

The whole refering to 9/11 thing doesn't seem right. It also doesn't seem to be widespread enough for someone with the resources of a bin ladin.

If it had been one massive post out that killed half the postal workers in the US that would be more his kind of tactic.

h2g2 type, i think it was an email i sent via the ACES egroup rather than one generated from the system. I will try and find it but i think it may have been deleted long ago